The Suitor
by T0theM00N
Summary: Au. While working at a distinguished art museum, Raoul desperately tries to reconnect with Christine Daae. But she claims not to know him.


The museum was a triumph in architecture which featured three grand floors and over three thousand works of art on display. Until the grand opening of this particular exhibit, the public had been completely ignorant of the thousands of neglected works wasting away in the museum attics.

Raoul de Chagny-a slight young man of about twenty-had never seen so many human beings gathered for a single event and, befuddled by the swarm of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, kept timidly to the side with his hand placed firmly on his security belt.

All the pomp bewildered Raoul. He didn't think any painting was great enough for all this fuss. And this painting, which he had seen before its restoration, seemed no more special than anything else the museum had to offer.

"Raoul!"

Raoul turned, his jaw slack. Phillipe stood near the main entrance. He had a stockier build than Raoul, and he was the older brother by almost twelve years. He greeted visitors with a tight-lipped smile and then, when no one was looking, left his post at the main entrance to talk to Raoul. He pulled Raoul further to the side in an attempt to be more discreet.

"What are you doing?" he whispered.

"What?"Raoul asked.

"You're supposed to be watching the exhibits, not the people."

"You said to find the vandal."

"Raoul," Phillipe said slowly. "If a bad guy does bad stuff when nobody's looking, where is the best place to find him?"

Raoul frowned. "Where no one's looking."

"See!" Phillipe said, and he patted Raoul on the back. "You don't need me. You can do this by yourself! Why don't you go walk through the Modern Art galleries? We've had some things come up missing there. Found them in the attic of all places."

Phillipe joined the crowd with a bounce in his step. Raoul sighed heavily and began ducking around the displays and the chatting women.

"It's an exquisite painting," he heard one woman say, "But I did notice…"

"Notice what?" said another.

"Well, it looks different, don't you think?"

"It looks the same to me. But who can tell anyway? The thing was in such horrible shape."

"No. I'm sure it's different."

The painting in question was the attraction of the century. Raoul glanced it as he was walking by and was stopped in his tracks. It was horrendously large, and the figure depicted within the frame frowned at its spectators with sunken, sleepless eyes. In its pale, varicose hands it clutched a wad of paper, and its whole posture radiated contempt for its viewer. A plaque below the frame read, _The Suitor_. Raoul silently agreed that it looked much different after being restored, and he wished that it had been left upstairs to rot.

He touched one of the ladies on the shoulder, who he recognized as Mz. Giry, a docent at the museum. "Who restored it?" he asked.

Mz. Giry launched into her explanation. "Madame Valerius. She's had a career here for-" she hesitated. "-oh, thirty years now. My goodness! How time flies. She'll be eighty come this December."

"Valerius?" Raoul asked. "You said, 'Valerius?'"

Below the grand staircase, he saw the door to the restoration room. It was slightly ajar, but when he left the ladies and walked toward the stairs, a little white hand darted out from behind the door and snapped it shut. Raoul paused in front of the closed door. He looked around the room and saw Phillipe staring at him over the heads of the visitors. Raoul hesitated one last time. Then he left the door and made his way to the hall of Modern Art.

The weeks following _The Suitor's_ restoration were less eventful. While Raoul had been thoroughly warned that artworks were liable to go missing or to be vandalized, there were no incidents, and the staff applauded him. He had somehow frightened away this serial vandal without any effort at all. In fact, he spent most of his shift finding excuses to be near the grand staircase. He hoped he might catch the door ajar one night, and have an excuse to go inside the restoration room.

A group of cleaning ladies approached him on their way out one evening. Some shook his hand-one even kissed him. It was through the ladies that Raoul learned there was a ghost haunting the museum (supposedly). Mz. Giry was pleased to tell him the whole legend-an incredible legend that followed the tragic life of a painter who claimed to have captured his own soul in a painting. Mz. Giry finished the legend by assuring Raoul that it was all true, and that the spirit of the painter was trapped in a portrait and roamed the great halls of the museum.

Mz. Giry had passed the story onto the cleaning ladies, and now every echoing footstep in the hall made each of them shudder. But since the restoration of _The Suitor_ , and since Raoul's appointment to the security team, no paintings had been knocked off their hooks. No sculptures wobbled on their pedestals. No glass displays had been cracked or scratched. Raoul was a hero.

It was after this period of peace that tragedy struck-thankfully, during someone else's shift. Mz. Giry Hall had been guiding a tour through an older gallery on the second floor very early in the morning. Halfway through her regular spiel, she caught a glimpse of the most horrible figure straggling on the outskirts of her tour group. On the opposite wall, just above the figure's head, was a distorted painting dripping oils onto the floor. Mz. Giry screamed and fainted on the spot.

Mz. Giry recognized the painting as a French one from the attic. She called it _The Suitor's Brother_ , because both had been created by the same anonymous painter. And when the staff shook her by the shoulders and asked who she saw standing beneath the painting, she could only reply that it was the ghost. It must have been the ghost.

Phillipe was distraught. No, not about Mz. Giry, but about the painting.

"I knew it was in the attic, but I didn't know the damage was so extreme," he said.

"It's completely melted," Raoul observed. "Do you think that's because of a leak in the roof?"

"No. No. Valerius thinks it was paint thinner. Whoever Mz. Giry saw standing in the gallery must have dipped it in turpentine."

"Valerius?" Raoul asked. His eyes brightened with interest. "You mean Madame Valerius?"

Phillipe fumbled. "Yes. But it's a different Valerius."

"A different Valerius? How many Madame Valeriuses exist in the world?"

No more was said on the subject. Raoul only knew that Madame Valerius was to restore _The Suitor's Brother_ , and that perhaps she'd have some assistance.

For the next few days, Madame Valerius raged behind the restoration room door. She did not emerge from the room, but assistants scurried in and out under her orders. Her restoration of _The Suitor_ had been sublime, and she knew it. She demanded privacy, then assistance. Then she shut the restoration room door, and the door stayed locked.

For all Raoul knew, she was working alone. But he camped outside the restoration room nonetheless. Surely an old woman needed help-the paintings weren't small, and they were difficult to lift. Perhaps she even had help from her own daughter. Raoul remembered the little white hand that had shut the restoration room door. Perhaps it was her.

He did find his opportunity to find out. The door, he noticed one late night, stood slightly ajar. Madame Valerius' voice had lost its rage, and now it bubbled with low laughter from inside the restoration room. Raoul heard the voice of another woman, and he pulled the door open cautiously.

"Christine?" he asked.

It was she. Christine, young and lovely, turned and faced him with a smile on her soft lips. Their eyes met, and her smile died. The tin of brushes she was holding slipped through her fingers and clattered on the floor.

"Raoul!" cried Valerius. She had a cheery, toothless grin. She started clambering down the ladder. "My precious boy! How are you?"

"Mama," Christine said harshly.

Valerius paused on a ladder rung.

"I'm wonderful," Raoul said. He removed his hat and wrung it in his hands. "I knew Phillipe was lying. All this nonsense about a "different Valerius." He was always less social than I am. Christine, how are you?"

Christine flicked her eyes around the room. "Sir," she said. "I don't recognize you."

"Of course. We were very young the last time we saw each other."

"No," Christine said. "I don't know you."

Raoul and Valerius exchanged looks.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave," Christine said. She led him formally to the door.

"Christine, it's me," said Raoul. "We used to play together, remember? We played games."

"I don't know who you are." She opened the door and hurried him out. Raoul forced his shoulders through and wedged the door open. Christine had turned very pale.

"It's Raoul," he insisted. "I lived across the street. I knew your father."

"But I don't know you, sir. Please, go away."

Raoul stared at her with an expression of pain, but Christine avoided his eyes. He asked questions softly at the door, and repeatedly she asked him to go.

"You know me!" Raoul cried.

"Please, sir. Go away for your own sake!"

They suddenly heard a great clamor from the restoration room and a cry of pain.

"Mama?" Christine said. She disappeared into the room. Before Raoul could push the door open, a scream full of grief and terror shook him.

"Mama!"

Inside the restoration room, Madame Valerius lay crumpled on the floor. Every bone in her body looked to be broken, and her mouth gaped lifelessly. The ladder on which she had stood lay beside her, snapped into two halves. She was dead.

Raoul stood staring at the scene until Christine pushed past him toward the door.

"Christine!" he called.

Christine tore through the restoration room door and stumbled.

"Oh god," she said. Her breath came in quick bursts, and tears leaked out of her eyes. "It's him. Oh god."

"Christine!"

Raoul watched Christine. She had stumbled into the center of the main hall and now spun in confused circles, looking wildly from painting to painting. When she whispered "Oh god," the museum rooms whispered it back. The lights went out.

"Christine!"

Raoul listened. He heard no breathing but his own. "Christine!" he said.

And something whispered it back.

The next morning, a letter appeared on Phillipe's desk. In crooked, childish print, the letter expressed a wish that none should worry while Miss Daae was away because she was only grieving the loss of her beloved mother and should return after a period of five days to continue the restoration (with the director's approval, of course).

Raoul objected that Christine's handwriting was narrow and neat, but Phillipe brushed him aside. One might permit sloppy handwriting in such tragic times as these. In fact, it was two weeks before Christine returned, and she was a changed woman.

She strode through the museum entrance with a high head and wide eyes. When she was spoken to, her head inclined, but her eyes remained fixed on a spot in the distance, as if she were always waiting for some thing to emerge from the shadows. When she spoke, her voice quivered. Raoul watched her march to the restoration room door, trembling from head to toe. He watched her openly, and as she closed the door behind her, she gave him a calm look of infinite hatred.

"What happened to your wrist?" Raoul asked.

Christine's eyes snapped up from _The Suitor's Brother_. She held a paintbrush awkwardly in her nondominant hand as the other one was tightly wrapped.

She looked at him absently. "You shouldn't be in here."

"I only wanted to help," he said.

He reached for her wrapped wrist, and his brow furrowed. The wrap was filthy and ill-fitting. He pulled at the so-called "bandage."

"Is this canvas?" he asked.

Christine yanked her arm away. "I don't know. I didn't wrap it."

"Then who did?"

Their eyes met, and in that moment Christine gave Raoul a look of such horrible sorrow that he immediately stepped away.

"I'm so sorry," he said, although he had no way of knowing what had made her give him that look.

"It's alright," she said, and she sat with a long sigh on a nearby bench. "I only wish…" She struggled to describe whatever it was that she wished, but thought of nothing suitable. She let out another sigh. "Poor Erik."

"Poor Erik?" Raoul cried. "Who is Erik?" He snatched her wounded wrist and tore the wrapping away. A violent yellow bruise had been hiding beneath the canvas wrap. "Who did this?" Raoul asked.

Christine squirmed. "Don't ask me that, Raoul!" she said. "Don't ask me those questions. I can't say."

"Who did this to you? Was it Erik?"

"No, it was you. You made him do it."

Raoul let go of her arm. "What are you talking about?"

"He's jealous of you," she said. "So jealous, Raoul. Oh, Raoul." She dropped her head into her hands. "I'm so stupid."

Raoul sat next to her on the bench. "Tell me about him," he said.

"Raoul, please. I can't."

"You must."

Christine hesitated. "Well," she said. "You might've noticed that Mama's mind was going near the end. It started five years ago. She started losing her memory-she became irrational, irritable. I thought she could handle restoring the artwork, but she ended up ruining a priceless painting. It almost ruined her career. I've been restoring the art works ever since. I love my work, Raoul. But I couldn't bear to see Mama's mind go. Nobody knows it, but I've been sleeping in the museum."

"The museum?"

"Yes. Mama had a nurse in the evening, and I didn't have to look after her then. I couldn't bear to be home. I'd spend hours studying the paintings, and then I'd lock myself in the restoration room to sleep.

"Then one night, I was sleeping right here on the bench when I heard a soft hum, like a wordless song in my ear. I thought at first that I must have been dreaming it, but every night I heard that song. And I found that if I pretended to sleep, the singing only grew louder and clearer, and it changed in melodies until I knew that someone really was singing in my room. I searched the room, and then I searched the halls. I thought maybe it was a security guard, or a cleaning lady playing a prank on me. But it wasn't. It was Erik."

At the mention of this name, they each heard a mournful sigh from above. Christine looked quickly to the shadows cast on the ceiling.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered.

"It's the building settling. How did you meet him?"

"Just like I told you. I followed the sound of the singing, and it led me straight to that painting, _The Suitor._ Erik painted it-and its brother, I would later learn. I even thought that the song was coming from the painting. I took it off the wall, and the singing stopped. Then someone whispered my name, and it seemed to come from the painting in my arms. I knew it was ridiculous, but the museum is different in the dark.

"So I asked, 'Are you the ghost?'

"And he answered, 'Yes.'"

"But it was a man," Raoul said.

"Yes. I came to know that the night Mama passed away."

"Did he kill her?"

Christine looked stricken. "It was an accident!" she said.

Raoul nodded quickly, and they sat in silence for a moment. "Tell me what happened," he said.

"I spoke with the voice every night. I told him about my mama, all the memories that were slipping away from her. I told him stories about Papa-all that I could remember, and I told him what I did each morning and night, who I saw and spoke to, what I ate, even what I dreamed of at night-because he loved to hear it. I told everything to the voice. And when I first saw you walk through the museum doors, that very night I told the voice everything about you-our childhood, our friendship. And I should have known then. I'm so stupid! How can a ghost be jealous? He warned me never to speak to you. I was lucky though. He didn't know what you looked like.

"But then you interrupted us in the restoration room. You thought it was only Mama and I, but Erik was always with me-watching me. I pretended not to recognize you. He saw through it."

Raoul rose from the bench halfway, his fists clenched.

"Please, Raoul!" Christine said. "You don't understand. Listen to me. Then you will understand. I disappeared that night, you remember?"

"Yes," Raoul said. "The lights went out, and when they came back on you were gone."

"He took me," she whispered.

"Took you where?"

"I didn't know at first. He grabbed me by the arm-that's the bruise you saw beneath my bandage) and I woke up later in a large room on a makeshift bed. I would later learn that it was part of the museum attics, but at the time I felt so confused and alone. There were no doors, no windows, only paintings strewn about the floor and nailed to the ceiling and walls. I knew how close I was to the outside world only by the cracks in the ceiling. The attics are falling apart at this very moment above our heads. Small pieces of junk had been left around the room which I realized quickly were gifts. Wild flowers, special coins from distant places, ancient books, and even priceless works of art that I recognized from the museum.

"I examined these things and the room in which they existed. There seemed to be no way out, and for a long time I ran my hands over every painting on the wall with growing hysteria. Was there no latch, no hidden door? And then I met Erik. He had heard me crying.

"A rather long, skinny portrait swung open and revealed a hole in the wall like a door. Erik stepped through it. I didn't know who he was because I had never seen the face behind the voice. He tried to comfort me, and I started hitting him over the head.

"'Who are you'? I asked him. He wore a mask wrapped around his face that I quickly saw was unprimed canvas. I clutched the cloth in my fingers and pulled until I was leading him by the head like one might lead a donkey. I told him to take it off, and I beat him over the head. He did not speak to me. In a rage, I beat him until his knees buckled, and he fell to the floor. I kicked him, and I yelled at him, but he did not stop me, and he did not say a word."

"Didn't you run?"

"I almost did. Erik had left the door standing wide open, and I ran to it. He was in no condition to follow me."

"What stopped you?"

Christine sighed. "Pity. As I reached the door, I heard him whisper my name. I turned and saw him there, lying on the ground and groaning. He was trying to follow me, but he could only twist around on the floor like a snake. I knew he was hurt badly. So I stopped. And I helped him."

"What did you do?"

"I walked back toward him slowly. His face was turned away from me, and he did not see me until I crouched beside him. His breath was quick and hysterical. When I touched his shoulder, he flinched, and I rolled him onto his back.

"'Who are you?' I asked him.

"With difficulty, he told me that he was Erik, and that he was sorry. When he spoke, it struck me that his voice was familiar.

"'Are you the ghost I've been speaking to?' I asked. I was utterly repulsed.

"He told me that he was, and again that he was sorry. I sat for a moment with my hand pressed over my mouth. The news sent a wave of nausea pulsing through my stomach. For so many minutes, I gasped for breath and blinked back tears, completely dumb to whatever Erik was feeling or thinking.

" _That voice. It was all a lie._

"It wasn't until I noticed blood seeping through the canvas around his head, that I came out of my thoughts. My hands hovered over his face.

"'Your head," I told him. 'You need a hospital.'

"He said, 'No. No hospitals.' And he seemed-when I looked into his eyes-all too ready to die. So I reached out and began unwrapping his head. His hands bumped against mine, and his fingers slid clumsily down my wrist. He made small noises of protest. But he was too weak to stop me."

Raoul leaned forward. "And?" he asked. "What happened next?"

"Well, I don't like to talk about it," Christine said. "But I suppose it makes a difference."

"What happened?"

"He cried."

"He did?"

"Yes. I had thought that the mask was in place to protect his identity, but I was wrong. Raoul-" she shuddered. "-he is deformed."

"Deformed?" Raoul asked.

"Yes. I cannot describe to you my great horror. I held the unwrapped canvas in my hand and gasped so loudly that he flinched at the sound. For a moment, his face was completely still, and it called to my mind that awful face from the painting which first seemed to speak to me from the museum wall. Then his face began to move. And he cried."

"You were gone for so long," Raoul said. "Did you care for him the entire time?"

"In a way. When he was done crying, I cleaned the wound on his head and found it was not too deep. I had to shake him to keep him from falling asleep, and I asked him where I could find some bandages. Awkwardly, he found his discarded mask and tried to wrap it around his head. I took it out of his hands.

"'It's covered in blood,' I told him. Then I tore a piece from the bottom of my skirt and wrapped it as best as I could. I led him over to the makeshift bed on the attic floor and laid him down because he was very dizzy. I knew reasonably that his wound would worsen, but when I looked at the door hidden in the wall and imagined myself running through it to safety, I felt small pangs of guilt. So I stayed by the bed in a chair which I brought from another room, and I watched him. Just when I thought he had fallen asleep, he asked me in a small voice if I would sing to him. So I sang to him, and he slept."

"And the next morning."

"He felt stronger, though his head hurt very much and I saw that he was a little dizzy."

"But what did you do? What did he say?"

"He was quiet, and rather meek. But he answered my questions."

"What questions?"

"I asked him what he wanted with me and why he brought me there. He answered me by saying he was a fan of my work. He liked my restorations of his paintings, and was touched by how lovingly they were handled. He had never expected the world to see his work again, and he wished for me to create works of art to display beside his own. He had seen me at work on my own paintings in the restoration room, and he liked them. In his words, he wished for all the world to see my paintings beside his own, like some bizarre marriage of our work."

"Is he in love with you?"

The deep bags under Christine's eyes seemed to deepen. "I asked him that," she said. "And he told me that he was. He assured me rather shyly that nothing was expected of me. He understood that it was not a mutual feeling. I asked him if I were allowed to leave, and he seemed to shrink down to nothing.

"'Yes,' he said very quietly. And he told me where to find the door and which staircase to take. He asked me not to go. I remembered Mama lying dead on the restoration room floor and felt that same tearful rage I had felt the night before. Here was her murderer, sitting at my feet like an offering. But when I looked at him, I saw in his eyes the same confusion and grief I had seen night after night in the eyes of Mama Valerius. And I felt I could not hate someone so pathetic. And I stayed for two weeks."

Again there was a miserable sigh from above, but neither took notice of it.

"Why?" Raoul asked. "I don't understand."

"Because he loves me, Raoul," Christine said. "It's a twisted, disturbing love, but that's all he can give me."

"Do you love him?"

Christine looked away. "I am horrified by him."

"What if he were handsome? Would you love him then?"

"If he were handsome, perhaps we would never have met."

"But you didn't answer me," Raoul said.

"Oh, Raoul!" she cried. "It doesn't matter if I would love him. It only matters if I love you."

Raoul took her hand. "Do you love me?" he asked.

"Of course I do."

She kissed him wearily and laid her head on his shoulder. Raoul rubbed his hands up and down her back and arms. While Christine had let her eyes fall shut, Raoul kept his open. Christine soon fell asleep, and Raoul stayed awake-his mind churning with troubling thoughts. He looked at the restoration room with new clarity. And as they were sitting in the rosy hours of the morning (for they had sat together the entire night), Raoul distinctly heard that familiar whisper which first he encountered the night of Mama Valerius's death.

"Christine," it whispered.


End file.
